by Lorraine Benham
She cited the huge sale of Deepak Chopra books in America as proof and went on to discuss baby boomers and generation X'ers as customers for 'lifestyle' and 'authentic' products and service.
The desire for such products is the big, big current retailing trend. Was she hyping-up a dedicated group of alternative healers and business people? No she was not. Her audience was made up of retailers, advertising executives, merchandisers, corporate managers, savvy professionals and high profile movers and shakers. This lady's word is golden. I understand she puts out a marketing trends newsletter, and if you wish to be a subscriber it will cost you $20,000 a year.
Seated at my table was a medical doctor, one who has forsaken the lean pickings of general practice for the more lucrative corporate world. He asked me what I did. When I started to explain he interrupted with, 'My god you're not NEW AGE are you?' His tone of voice implied I was spreading the Ebola virus. And there we have the marketing issue around alternative therapies and wholistic products in a nutshell. This man was perfectly prepared to take on board the need to market his company's goods as contributing to one's lifestyle and as an 'authentic' experience but when it came to the products and services which all along have embodied these virtues, he reacted to them as anathema. Why? All the recent Australian research backs up what the American expert was saying about American trends. Eighty per cent of Australians have said they would rather use a natural healing product rather than a prescribed or 'artificial' one if it does as good a job!
Many people are also making more considered 'lifestyle' choices with regard to their health maintenance practices, work, social activities and where they live. In recognition of this trend it is now routine in market research to define the market in terms of 'values' clusters as well as demographics. The two may coincide but not always.
The figure of $1billion a year spent on alternative therapies is what is currently quoted but careful analysis will show that the bulk of this is spent on product, primarily vitamins and herbal mixtures. This market is growing fast and established companies are now being joined by mainstream chemical companies anxious to cash in on the trend. At the same time, there is also an increase in alternative therapists, with a current estimate of 4000 in Australia and another 4000 in training. If the increase in the number of therapists coming into the market continues at this rate we are in for interesting times as everyone competes to establish their practice!
So why the distaste of our erstwhile doctor for things New Age. How come he is not writhing in jealousy as alternative therapists and wholistic business people race ahead of more conventional business people in capturing customers wanting 'authentic' products and services which support their desire to be in charge of their lifestyle? Because its not happening, that's why. As more and more conventional businesses 'get the lingo' and pitch for the natural customer base of alternative therapists and wholistic businesses, many 'New Agers' are still fluffing around in 'la la land'. New Age has got a bad name because so many of us have been talking about the wonderful experiences we've been having instead of talking the language of our customers.
There was a time when being a conventional medical doctor was a vocation and a service. It still is of course, but is also a business, and a number of savvy doctors are now adding in alternative therapy to both provide a more wholistic service and to broaden their customer base. My question is, how are you, alternative therapists and wholistic business people planning to broaden your customer base? The research shows there is a very hefty potential market for all the goods and services advertised in this very magazine. How are you planning to tap into it?
Lets look at what the situation is. While the research shows that 80% of Australians want to use 'natural remedies' and the percentage who have used vitamins and herbs is about 60%, only 20% have actually tried anything as ordinary as a massage and the percentage who have tried Chinese Medicine, naturopathy, kinesiology, reflexology, acupressure and bio energetics is smaller and the percentage who will have tried one of the many forms of vibrational healing will be smaller still.
However the answer is not to enter into elaborate explanations of what these therapies do for people and how fantastic they are. What we need to do is to understand where our customers are coming from, not explain to them where we're coming from.
The first step is to understand our existing customers who are they, what issues do they face, what is their language? If each practitioner or wholistic business person tracked their customer base they would have a mine of information. Are they all young or old? What are their issues? Do they come from the same geographical area? Do they have a particular educational background? What values do they hold? Is there a unifying characteristic reflected in your customer base? Current research tells us that well educated working women are the biggest consumers of alternative therapies/goods/services. Does your customer base reflect this?
If your existing customer base does show a consistent or unifying set of characteristics, how can you reach more people in the same category? If the unifying characteristic of your customer base is that they all come from the same geographic area then your marketing and advertising strategy will need to be very different to someone whose customer base is primarily adolescent children with learning difficulties who come from all over Melbourne.
Learning the language of our customers is crucial. Many of the terms we use are gobbledegook to people who are potential customers. It is our responsibility to explain it in their terms, not their task to find out what we're talking about. It often makes more sense to describe your service or product in terms of RESULTS rather than as a process or modality. There is a big difference in the comprehensibility, of the statement 'you will feel calm and relaxed' - rather than 'energy balancing allows energy blockades to be released and the energy flow in the body to be restored' if you have no understanding of what 'energy' is.
It is good to remind ourselves that we are selling feelings, how some-one will feel inside after they have used our goods and services. They will be moving from some current feeling to an altered feeling. Their experience of themselves will change in some way. What are the words that describe the feelings of your customers when they first come to you or before they use your product? How do they feel afterwards?
The research that has been done on why people decide to try alternative therapies tells us that they are often moving away from how they feel when treated by some orthodox medical practitioners. They describe feeling like a disease not a person, being treated hurriedly by a practitioner who has no time to talk to them and disliking being in a dependant position with little say in their treatment. This means that the way you offer your services is a selling point. That you engage with your clients in understanding their experience, you work with them to achieve agreed upon outcomes and you spend sufficient time with them to enable them to feel fully nurtured and responded to in the context of the reason why they have come to see you. These characteristics of your service are an effective component in a marketing strategy.
However, some potential clients shy away from alternative therapies because it all seems rather unfamiliar and very different from a clinician with a white coat, stethoscope and prescribed medicines. Therefore it is important to be able to give clients and customers a feeling of safety. Many alternative therapists have trained in a wide range of modalities and had years of experience. Have a sheet or introduction pack that you can mail out to or give to respective clients to establish your credentials and/or offer a no obligation free introductory session so your client can meet you and make up their own mind about whether it would be useful for the two of you to work together.
You can also have a sheet with testimonials from previous satisfied clients and/or offer a money back guarantee. This might seem drastic but you wouldn't offer your services or products if you didn't think they were effective. Such a guarantee establishes your integrity way up front.
A very effective way of establishing knowledge of your service or product is media exposure - where your personal story is what is being written about rather than what you are selling. I can think of two recent examples. A heart warming story about a lady who developed an all natural hair removal gel to help her 'hairy' children which was in a national magazine and on TV. Also the story of how personal tragedy led a very sick person to successfully use kinesiology and then become a kinesiologist that was in a national magazine. If you can't scale these heights just yet, what interesting personal story do you have that would look good in the local paper or make interesting listening on community radio. The hook in the story of course needs to be how an ordinary person overcomes adversity, not how an ordinary person has extra-ordinary metaphysical experiences, because we can all identify with being ordinary, and needing to overcome adversity.
And now finally the big one - the big trend - creation of one's own authentic lifestyle. How does your service or product put your customer in charge? How does it allow them to be themselves or the self they have always wanted to be? If they are feeling just one of the crowd, unmotivated, and uncreative how will your service or product provide them with the capacity to feel resourceful, creative, satisfied and authentic?
I did some shopping in Myer at the weekend, a store I would normally visit about once every 6 months so I'm always a bit 'behind' in retailing trends. As I entered I could smell this really nice smell. It wasn't coming from the make-up and perfume section so I followed my nose till I saw a big sign, 'Aromatherapy'. There spread out on table after table were sachets of herbs, candles, oil, you name it, all the stuff that once I could only buy from 'hippy' types at local markets. My local chemist now advertises a naturopath on duty all the time and puts out a monthly coloured, glossy newsletter about natural remedies that is identical in format and content to that of the local health food shop. The latest marketing information from America refers specifically to the recent failure of American health food shops as a viable form of specialised retailing.
It's time for us all to wake up and look at what we are doing in marketing and advertising. We are being creamed by mainstream retailers and practitioners who are taking the time to find out what customers want. So step down from the ivory tower of metaphysical language and experience and find out why your customers come to you and what they really enjoy about your service or product. Then describe what you are doing in your customers terms so all the others out there who want the same experience can beat a path to your door.
About Author the Author
Lorraine Benham provides a marketing and advertising consultancy to alternative health businesses and offers courses in marketing and advertising to teach alternative therapists and business people how to understand their market and reach them effectively with low-cost advertising.
